Soaring on the Rays of Infinity

PS: Working around 2 months on that piece already..so I am not the fastest guy when it comes to those things.

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Ha! But you're just doing it. And that counts millions. Remember, Rubinstein, when he was 20 years old thought he sucked so badly that he tried to kill himself. He hung himself and pushed the chair away....and then the rope broke (WTF? Can you imagine). But then he just kept going to become the greatest pianist in the world. Too bad he didn't compose.

Ha! But you're just doing it. And that counts millions. Remember, Rubinstein, when he was 20 years old thought he sucked so badly that he tried to kill himself. He hung himself and pushed the chair away....and then the rope broke (WTF? Can you imagine). But then he just kept going to become the greatest pianist in the world. Too bad he didn't compose.

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tbh in order to write in that idiom you have to transcribe a tons of 40s music, ranging from korngold to webb which I do. Its not easy stuff because the harmony is very dense and has a lot of extensions and biting bass tones. So I spent a lot of time doing that, learning those progressions, and its a lot of guessing. But the more I do it, the more I detect certain patterns and gestures which re-apear in that idiom and it helps me to sort them. I also study with my friend dillon development techniques from Rachmaninoff and Tschaikowsky which we both learn and we work pretty close together for around 6 month now, sometimes we share everyday little things we sent forth and back. Imo thats a very good thing. We both don´t care too much about any current trends in music because we both are only focussed beeing one day great composers which matters the most to us.

Korngold can be quite difficult to transcribe. As you say, some of it is very dense and without a score I'd have a hard time extracting nuggets. He does have some very distinct patterns though. However, almost all of these go way back to when he was a child prodigy so you can get many of the same ideas from his childhood pieces as the later more complex ones. Some (such as Sursum Corda) are so dense though that I have a difficult time digesting them even with a score. I think they're above my level at the moment so I'll come back to them later. I have the same problem with Rachmaninoff as I can't play most of his pieces but Tchaikovksky is much more accessible although not as modern. You already play piano but do you work actively on your piano skills? I too am very slow (and I hate this!) though I find improving my piano skills has helped over the years but it takes up so much time to even make a little progress (partly because I learn on my own). Improving as an older person is such a struggle though, I really envy you younger guys and particularly those child prodigies that soak material up like a sponge. Well, great to hear there are some others who appreciate such skills and values.

If you're interested in expanding your scope of study to include Prokofiev, I've found a great resource (as you may know, there is little written on Prokofiev outside of Russia). Konrad Harley did a dissertation thesis on Harmonic Functions of Prokofiev's Music. If you listen to his Piano Concerto No.2 or his Piano Sonata No.8, you'll hear he has some really interesting composition and orchestral techniques going on and Konrad discusses these in very digestible english. Totally different from the MV transcribe approach but equally interesting to me. Maybe you might like to take a look too? I've found it to be a real goldmine. Cheers.https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/68119

Not sure how much percentage of this library you used, maybe the back bone of the brass, I understand its not the easiest library to use, but glad to know composers are taken these type of unconventional library on board.

Not sure how much percentage of this library you used, maybe the back bone of the brass, I understand its not the easiest library to use, but glad to know composers are taken these type of unconventional library on board.

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90 percent..most of the time you hear the sm brass alone..when very loud horns are at ff I backed them up with csb / caspian.

I also study with my friend dillon development techniques from Rachmaninoff and Tschaikowsky

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Yo !! Why you post here and not the other place ? I don't come around here much as things are so prone to devolving.

Anyhow, just a reminder what I said a few weeks ago about the Bass. T. (lazy for me do) often uses pedals and pivots when he wants to keep up the intensity but is winding down. More movement when heading to climax spots.

Just making this up off the top my head: So you have those maj.6ths G-E moving up to Ab- F.
Let's say (again I am making this up on the spot, so I am not saying its what you should do, merely to make a point) you have a Bass pedal of D. So the G-E could be filled out as a Emi7/D, when you move up to Ab-F it becomes Dmi7b5. You can keep going. So A-F# can become D7, up again Bb-G would become gmi/D (you can extended all of these to 7ths, 9ths) then up again could be E7/D with B-G#. You can come up with many, and much more creative patterns than what I just described.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Begin at 7:55 and watch the bass until say about 15:30.

Hit me up over yonder, and I'll explain further. Be well, and it sounds great !